San Bernardino County and Riverside County, California Biographies
History of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties
By: John Brown, Jr., Editor for San Bernardino County
And James Boyd, Editor for Riverside County
With selected biography of actors and witnesses of the period
of growth and achievement.
Volume III, the Western Historical Association, 1922,
The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
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HUGO SONTAG
The story of development of land and homes in San Bernardino County
introduces Hugo Sontag, one of the old timers of this region, who has lived here
nearly half a century. His post office address is Alta Loma, but his home is a ranch
three miles northeast, at the mouth of Cucamonga Canyon. Mr. Sontag was born in
East Prussia July 24, 1840, son of Gustav Sontag, who had fought in the German
armies against Emperor Napoleon. Hugo was the youngest of six children. He
acquired a good education in the schools of Prussia and Silesia, and received a
thorough technical training in the University of Halle, from which he graduated in
1862. In University he specialized in minerology geology, and surveying. He was
examined as preliminary to his work as a mining engineer in the presence of the
Burghauptman, and on passing was qualified for government work. He then entered
the service of the Imperial Government and was employed in sinking test wells to
discover coal veins, but these wells showed deep salt deposits instead at the depth
of 950 feet. Mr. Sontag in 1871 came to America. For a time he was in Pennsylvania,
and as an expert geologist did some prospecting for oil, and located what later
became a well developed oil field. From there he went on to St. Louis and entered the
service of the old Pacific Railroad Company as a surveyor, and did some of the
preliminary work running lines for proposed railways to Old Indian Territory. He
surveyed the line from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Okmulgee. In the fall of 1875 Mr.
Sontag arrived at Los Angeles, and three months later he went to Cucamonga, where
in 1876 he bought six or eight acres from the Southern Pacific Railroad Company and
thirty acres from private parties. This land he cleared, set to vineyard and deciduous
fruits, and kept the property until it was well developed, when he sold. In the meantime,
in 1877, Mr. Sontag took up a homestead of a hundred thirty-six acres at the mouth of
Cucamonga Canyon. Subsequent purchases have enlarged this to two hundred and
forty-one acres. On it he has built his home, and has a considerable flow of water,
building a reservoir and piping the water to users below. A storm destroyed the pipe
line and practically all improvements except the reservoir. Mr. Sontag in this and other
ways has been a real pioneer in the development of this section. He was one of the
first to go into the bee industry on a commercial scale, and formerly he sold honey by
the carload lots. He still has an apiary of 194 stands. Mr. Sontag, who is a genial
bachelor, has been in Cucamonga District from a time when he practically had no white
neighbors, the country being occupied chiefly by Indians and a few Mexicans. His
nearest railway station was Cucamonga, but now Guasti, and the only resident at the
station was the railway agent, who lived in a box car. Mr. Sontag is a republican in politics.
Page 1054.
Transcribed and submitted by Sally Kaleta, January 2010.